Guild Wars 2

Slow (Condition)

“Skills and actions are slower.”

We have the positive version of this already as quickness, which increases the speed of skills and actions. This will slow down animations and casts, allowing more time to dodge or interrupt the incoming massive attack. We’ve also improved both quickness and slow. Currently, quickness will cause your cast bar to cut out early. With the improvement, your skill cast bar will smoothly update when you gain quickness or slow, even during the middle of using a skill.

Taunt (Status Effect)

“Involuntarily attack foes.”

We have many different status effects in Guild Wars 2 that accomplish a variety of goals, such as knockdown, knockback, and daze. In this expansion, we wanted to open up gameplay options using taunt. Taunt will be used to both reposition foes and change your foes’ targets. For example, when used on players, it will force the taunted player to run at their target with their skill bar locked—minus stun breakers—and only use their autoattack skill to attack. This gives us the opportunity to use taunt in multiple ways, not just as a player skill, but also as a tool to create interesting creature encounters that utilize this taunt effect against players.

Now I know the title of this post is a bit dramatic, but the taunt condition really concerns me. I feel like this may prevent us from escaping during crucial moments.

Thoughts?

One thing I can see working out for Thieves is that the Profession has a nice amount of ways to disengage or interrupt. Assuming both of these new conditions have some visual “tell,” it’s only going to suck the first time a Thief takes on a Revenant.
Imagine the fun of baiting out some poor mook’s Taunt or Slow attacks.

This “slow” condition sounds a lot like chill…. I don’t really understand why we need a new version of it? I suppose chill itself could be modified to do that. Imagine getting both chill and slow applied. That’ll be ridiculous. Already immob stacking is the bane of roaming alone, this is just going to make it even more of a zerg v zerg battle

Thief skills mostly have quick casts. Slow will hose thiefs less than others.

A couple of the F1 stolen skills take a while to cast and you shouldn’t use these while slowed, but the core disruption will not be so bad.

Taunt looks like it will destroy thieves. You at least run away from fear, whereas taunt will run you into your opponents strongest attacks with no dodges.

Bring stun breaks.

Well “Slow” sounds like it would be problematic for everyone. Would it be particularly rough on Thieves, given our playstyle? Yes, though I don’t think it would be enough to be SO worried.

What scares me is the “Taunt” condition. Granted, it may give some classes better means of tanking beyond using heavy control builds. But as a thief who relies on on-point mechanics and likes a very high octane play style, being forced to do something I didn’t want to do is terrifying. I mean we already kinda have problems like this in the form of Fear, but at least then we’re being pushed away from the target (albeit slowly). But being forced to not only involuntarily get in close to an enemy but also attack them? That could be REALLY bad… Especially if it’s used while we’re in stealth. Being forced to backstab at an inopportune time is a bone-chilling thought…

Doom and gloom aside however, given what little information we have so far, I don’t think there’s a reason to get really scared JUST yet. We don’t know how it will be implemented, so this could just be preemptive panic. I think it should be okay provided the following is true:

1) All Taunt-inflicting skills have obvious tells. Not asking for 3 seconds of obvious of course, but enough so that a prepared and experienced player can either dodge or interrupt them.

2) There is no “Fear Me!” equivalent for Taunt skills (i.e. AoE Taunts). While bad for everyone, this would be especially bad for Thieves that have dropped into stealth. Taunt skills should either be target only or characters under the effects of stealth should ignore the effect.

3) The Taunt condition receives specific balancing tweaks in terms of duration for PvP and WvW (like revealed).

Given those things happen, I think everything will be fine.

Not really it seems they are only available to specializations and maybe new mobs, we have SA and a most likely range rifle user, also depends on their balance patches. They are not wild enough to implement it to base classes or SA and Acro are getting buffs. I’m looking forward to SH meta and the possibility of different pve meta.

Torment + Confusion + Taunt = dead thief xD

Very curious about how these new effects and specializations will play out.

What scares me is this: Thieves are very squishy, when it’s time to escape, our lives depend on it. Say I’m at 50% hp and I want to gain some breathing room. All of the sudden, I’m taunted and I’m going head first into a combo of enemy fields and cleave. Instant dead.

Say I’m imobed. I use my stun break and then I’m taunted. Dead.

I just see thief survivability diminishing. Will this be the point, where the risk is no longer worth the reward?

As for shadow arts, there’s the age old argument that you’re not contributing while sitting in stealth.

Drennon.7190:

What scares me is this: Thieves are very squishy, when it’s time to escape, our lives depend on it. Say I’m at 50% hp and I want to gain some breathing room. All of the sudden, I’m taunted and I’m going head first into a combo of enemy fields and cleave. Instant dead.

Say I’m imobed. I use my stun break and then I’m taunted. Dead.

I just see thief survivability diminishing. Will this be the point, where the risk is no longer worth the reward?

As for shadow arts, there’s the age old argument that you’re not contributing while sitting in stealth.

Never saw that argument, you get in stealth anyway, the reasons are you lose Trickery/buffed steal to interrupt heals but lol war,engi,ele took it lightly and some boon removal/share. I expect SA to be more useful in SH and condi thieves entering it’s meta ,nothing stoped s/d switching from CS to Acro ,d/p may do the same for SA. The new toys should and probably will be locked with expension/specializations .

would fear or immobilise be any different? it’s just a status, use a stunbreak or something like you would for fear.

adozu.6398:

would fear or immobilise be any different? it’s just a status, use a stunbreak or something like you would for fear.

Not sure you get it. More cc/condi same break stuns=/=just break stun/cleanse as it if was fear. Just like more boons same boon hate=/= just remove the boon which never really happened.

This sounds very interesting. To be honest it doesn’t sound skill promoting in the least, which concerns me. Does anyone have a link to this info that I can study up on?

MightyMicah.7451:

This sounds very interesting. To be honest it doesn’t sound skill promoting in the least, which concerns me. Does anyone have a link to this info that I can study up on?

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/revenant-the-master-of-the-mists/

Considering it’s a tiny glimpse of what’s coming in the expansion… I’m assuming and hoping that there will be a hefty “balance” patch with it or soon after. So yeah got to wait till that.

Slow might wreck Dagger, but I’m going to love slow for Flanking Strike, Pistol Whip, and Disabling Shot.

We are getting a new heal I hear so chances are it will have a clear for the new ones. then again torment, so who knows for sure

Shockwave.1230:

Slow might wreck Dagger, but I’m going to love slow for Flanking Strike, Pistol Whip, and Disabling Shot.

We are about to find out how invulnerability actually works in this game:
1- We get invul for the whole animation
2- We get for the first second and get rooted-rekt in the next.

Without a huge re-balancing effort I’ll probably end up shelving the thief. Condition weakness on the class and general over-effectiveness of conditions is just too prominent and without huge ways to mitigate these new effects, there will be little purpose in trying to risk playing the class or anything not sitting on 6 in Shadow arts/gimmick builds.

SoulSin.5682:

Shockwave.1230:

Slow might wreck Dagger, but I’m going to love slow for Flanking Strike, Pistol Whip, and Disabling Shot.

We are about to find out how invulnerability actually works in this game:
1- We get invul for the whole animation
2- We get for the first second and get rooted-rekt in the next.

It’s the duration of the channel. I don’t run quickness on S/D because of this.

The slow condition will certainly make no activation time skills and utilities more desirable.

Withdraw as the heal as example as opposed to a Hide in shadows with the latter getting another half second time added to activate. Obviously this premised on just how common the sources of said condition become.

Taunt IMHO deserves a rethink. It might be ok in PVE or even in PVP but with all of that AOE in WvW taunting people to run through it makes little sense. It just leads to the mindless spamming of such skills and utilities on an area followed by a taunt. One of the problems with FEAR is while under its effects people lose all control of their gameplay. I really am leery of conditions that surrender control of a player and what he can do in the game to a condition.

If someone manning siege at a castle wall will taunt force him off the same to chase an enemy down?

Don’t forget about the new Boon as well..

New and Shiny!
New boons, conditions, and status effects have been added to the revenant as well as spread across other professions’ specializations. These are cool ways we’ll allow players to interact with new types of skills in our combat system.
Resistance (Boon)
“Conditions currently on you have no effect; stacks duration.”
• Currently, we have skills that provide a similar effect, such as the warrior’s Berserker Stance (condition immunity with no counterplay). When placed on a character, this boon will temporarily relieve them of all the negative effects that conditions have on the character. For example, if a character is running in fear with the fear condition, they’ll stop running in fear when resistance is placed on them. When resistance ends, they’ll resume running in fear. Having this type of effect on a boon makes it so the boon can be removed by other players, adding in more counterplay.

I’m assuming this will be added to the list of boons that steal grants in the trickery line.. so you get the new conditions, pop steal and kill your target.

I’m thinking more about what resistance could mean for Thieves, if the new specialization gets it or it gets integrated into current Thief skills.

Imagine being able to completely ignore conditions for a couple of seconds. Might not be as big against necros, because corrupt boon, but Engineers? Condi Rangers? would be a nice thing to have against them.

Sagat.3285:

MightyMicah.7451:

This sounds very interesting. To be honest it doesn’t sound skill promoting in the least, which concerns me. Does anyone have a link to this info that I can study up on?

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/revenant-the-master-of-the-mists/

Thanks bro

Yes, slow and taunt will kill thieves.

They are far too squishy with no access to Aegis or Protection, and their stability gain is gated behind a trait (which isn’t even that good).

This game offers an overabundance of condis and ccs, with not enough condi clears and stun breakers.

Kurow.3076:

Yes, slow and taunt will kill thieves.

They are far too squishy with no access to Aegis or Protection, and their stability gain is gated behind a trait (which isn’t even that good).

This game offers an overabundance of condis and ccs, with not enough condi clears and stun breakers.

I doubt there’ll be more stuns coming at you per encounter though. At most these will be the same frequency of fear and quickness.

I’ll call it right now

Thief gets no access to new boons or condis

Heard it here 1st

T raw.4658:

I’ll call it right now

Thief gets no access to new boons or condis

Heard it here 1st

Definitely. Slow is for Chronomancers, Resistance is for new Guards/Wars/Reve, Taunt is for heavies too. Thief will get rifle with each shot taking 4 seconds to line up. Great for WvW though! Sometimes…

Taunt looks like something that will get me killed in an instant.

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Taunt looks like something that will get me killed in an instant.

I’m pretty sure the taunt is on their (revenant’s) elite… so hopefully it’s not easily accessible.

According to the forum every new change will be the deah of thief. :P And yet somehow this is the only profession that never left meta if my memory serves me well.

witcher.3197:

According to the forum every new change will be the deah of thief. :P And yet somehow this is the only profession that never left meta if my memory serves me well.

Ehhh… I wouldn’t say this is true currently. Thieves are seen largely as sPvP liabilities, P/D dire conditions is the real contender in WvW roaming atm because it’s just blatantly overpowered (D/P and D/D are long gone from competitive small scale outside of killing low-skill players for the most part) because we’re facing a slow transgression into a condition-based roaming meta, and thieves were really never part of the speed-clear PvE scene before RT, and even then, it’s only for some encounters as generally speaking other classes deal more DPS through boon distribution capabilities.

The only role the class as a whole has done will with for an extended period of time is WvW small-scale/roaming, but that’s now changing quite a bit.

They’ve never really been part of an optimization strategy so much as they’ve been usable throughout formats because generally speaking the class is fairly balanced. Optimal or a metagame dependency, though? Not forever, no.

… Crap… Taunt… We’re so screwed…

DeceiverX.8361:

witcher.3197:

According to the forum every new change will be the deah of thief. :P And yet somehow this is the only profession that never left meta if my memory serves me well.

Ehhh… I wouldn’t say this is true currently. Thieves are seen largely as sPvP liabilities, P/D dire conditions is the real contender in WvW roaming atm because it’s just blatantly overpowered (D/P and D/D are long gone from competitive small scale outside of killing low-skill players for the most part) because we’re facing a slow transgression into a condition-based roaming meta, and thieves were really never part of the speed-clear PvE scene before RT, and even then, it’s only for some encounters as generally speaking other classes deal more DPS through boon distribution capabilities.

The only role the class as a whole has done will with for an extended period of time is WvW small-scale/roaming, but that’s now changing quite a bit.

They’ve never really been part of an optimization strategy so much as they’ve been usable throughout formats because generally speaking the class is fairly balanced. Optimal or a metagame dependency, though? Not forever, no.

I was talking about PvP. Shortbow’s mobility alone will keep thieves in the meta for a long long time because of their backcap potential, and the burst + mobility makes them great for +1’ing fights.

T raw.4658:

I’ll call it right now

Thief gets no access to new boons or condis

Heard it here 1st

yeah pretty much this

i am also quite sure thieves won’t get anything new to deal with even increased crapload of condis and CCs… because anet logic~

i am also calling yet another dmg nerf because we didn’t have one in a while yet

oh and i am quite sure they will buff some random venom trait that will nobody ever use

don’t want to be that person but from the looks of it this xpac gonna make me quit game, at least for a while… as i couldn’t care less about pve and pvp will be just even worse -_-